A Georgia assistant athletic director who works in finance met with UGA police on March 3 to report the checks cashed twice and police began to investigate. Warrants were issued for the arrests of the players on Monday–after students returned from spring break–and a Clarke County Magistrate Court judge signed the warrant.

“We normally don’t take out warrants on students during spring break because we’re afraid they may get stopped,” Williamson said. “I don’t want one of them to get stopped for some traffic violation and then that county lock them up. We would do that for all students.”

52 responses to “Never leave a man behind.”

Maybe I’m getting old and soft-hearted, but I just don’t get all this. They screwed up. We could easily have tracked which checks it was, so why not just confront the players and tell them if they don’t fess up what they know we’ll have to get the police involved because they must have been stolen. They tried to pull one over on the man and got caught. It wasn’t malicious. I just don’t understand what our Athletic Department is doing, honestly. We’re afraid of something. I just don’t know what it is. I can’t think of another Ath. Dept. in the SEC that would have handled it this way.

Any smart AD would have handled it this way. The mere mention of compliance ought to scare the bejezus out of any Athletic Department. I have issues with how McGarity is running things, but not in this case.

Bob, I disagree. I think we could have run clear of the NCAA and handled it better legally. For instance, how should we handle a player stealing a $70 Nike Coach’s sideline polo from the equipment room? Should we turn that player into the police? He’s probably getting it for a friend or his dad, so it is also an impermissible benefit to relatives or close friends of a student-athlete.

Or, we turn that in as an inadvertent extra benefit of a shirt, count it as a secondary violation and move on. We could have said this was an inadvertent double stipend for these kids and reported it as a violation and been done. Behind closed doors, we could have told them that they could have gone to jail for this and punish them internally until they wished they’d never see a bleacher again and told them that one more strike and they’re out. I just don’t get the mindset of turning our own kids over to the law. If one of my sons steals from his mom’s purse, I CAN turn him into police for theft, but I don’t have to. I don’t understand our stance on things like this. It’s a minor, secondary violation and we could have avoided their public shaming when they made a stupid college kid decision. We don’t look good in this. It only makes us look bad while other teams are sweeping pot and carrying handguns under the rug. It’s not helping us win more games, it’s not giving us some moral high-ground to stand on, and, most importantly, it’s not teaching kids a lesson and helping them become better men. It’s shaming them because of their high profile status for the kinds of things college kids do repeatedly. There’s a better way to handle it, I think.

Uhhhh… what? I agree with most of your post and I agree that your suggestions should be applied to other situations but this isn’t something most college kids do. They stole, plain and simple. That’s much different than boozing or toking.

They stole, but I don’t think it was malicious. I stole a few road signs as a teenager. It was wrong, but it wasn’t malicious. Old women try to stick a few cookies in their purse for later from Golden Corral, but that doesn’t make them horrible people. College kids steal pizzas, sneak into sporting events and concerts, and dine and dash, and try to cash in textbooks that aren’t theirs. Yes, this happens repeatedly. They used very poor judgment. They saw themselves as stealing from a large organization (the UGAA) that wouldn’t miss it. I think the intent and mindset is very different than stealing from a person. It’s all wrong. So is underage drinking. So is marijuana use. I just think we could have used better discretion in how we handled it.

Did you steal your roommates check? I might be wrong and it might be too early to judge, but if accurate then stealing from a teammate is about as low as you can get…in the service no one was more despised than a barracks thief.

Maybe I am missing the boat here, but aren’t we rationalizing and trivializing theft? We saw Nick Marshal and company get kicked out for alleged theft.

Could it have been handled internally? I don’t know enough about the specifics to answer that so I guess it could have been. But I do know you don’t want to put the entire program in jeopardy either.

I am the first to agree that the Athens-Clarke County police and University police have been heavy handed at times. And I also agree that our AD does some strange things as well. Just not sure how they could have handled this much differently. And trying to cover up stuff like this eventually gets you into far more trouble than the act itself.

I certainly respect your thoughts on it and I see the point. Just not sure it would have been the right course of action.

They didn’t steal their roommates’ checks – they cashed checks made out to themselves twice.
As someone said above, this should have been handled with a “pay the money back, don’t do it again, and enjoy running stadium stairs”; there is no way this is worthy of a police report, an arrest, or all the media hoopla that is being bandied about…
Was it wrong and immoral? Yes. Was it worth making them wear a scarlet letter for the rest of their lives like this? Hell no.
This is so petty that if they were ordinary people, a police report probably wouldn’t have even been issued. If any of the “Law & Order” types in society had a kid who did this, they wouldn’t want this to be a permanent blight on their kids either – and the fact of the matter is that based on teh small amount of money involved, 90% (if not more) of the prosecutors in this state would likely dismiss the charges once the money is paid back.
Drawing any broad or sweeping conclusions about this – other than that these 4 kids are pretty dumb – such as Coach Richt is too lax, our players don’t “fear” him, we recruit kids with bad character, etc., IS moronic.

They see it as a big conglomerate, an Athletic association. They weren’t stealing from teammates. They were getting cash from the AD that had already gone to teammates. BTW, I think the one by LeMay stands in a little different category. I’m just thinking of their mindset. “This University has millions of dollars. What damage is it gonna do if I cash this $70 check a couple of times?”

I’m for grace. It’s the best thing going today. I think we could have had a little more grace here and still had justice. I don’t think they’ll all be kicked off and it worries me that people think they should. If we are going to kick off kids for every misdemeanor, then don’t ever complain ever again about losing to another SEC school, because it’s simply not happening in other places. I don’t think that’s a moral high ground we have to choose. I think we can be fair, just, teach lessons and have some common sense grace. What Marshall did and what these guys did are in totally different categories.

I appreciate your kindness – I think we need a lot more of it. But as somebody who, as my mom once put it, “skated by on his charm”, in middle age and far less charming I have many regrets, and I wish to God somebody had “helped” me along via a boot in my ass.

I also used to think in terms of “the man” , but part of their education ought to be learning there is no institution or government that can either grant your personal needs or absorb your crimes without depriving others of something. Sometimes this is justified and improves society, sometimes not, but we need to make sure they’re aware that just because something is big and complex doesn’t make our interaction with it a zero sum affair.

I don’t think their dismissal, if done with a lot of love and encouragement, will ultimately hurt them, but help them. And I think it will improve morale on the team to know they’re part an organization with high standards – that reflects positively on each member’s self-esteem and sense of identity, just as each member’s good conduct reflects positively on the program.

Depending on the facts, I am for grace as well. I do not think they should be kicked off the team unless there are other issues. And I don’t know enough about this case to disagree on the level of crime vice what Nick Marshall and others did.

Where I disagree is that unless I am mistaken these guys are briefed over and over and over on what they can do and what they can’t do. And no matter how you slice it, it is still theft.

Perhaps we could have handled it internally. Not sure. Not ever sure right now if the University actually knew that the players had done what they did when they first reported it…although you would like to think that they did some internal investigating. What I do know is that in every single case I can think of, trying to cover up a crime comes back to haunt folks far more than fessing up for the actual crime.

Shoplifters only take a token amount from large conglomerates. Should we just let them go with a thank you for not taking more? A grand jury I served on did that. It only takes two morons to vote no ticket.

Stealing is stealing, degrees matter to the judicial system, but it is theft plane and simple. Who from is immaterial. The mindset of the thief is to get something not earned or deserved.

These kids should be punished and I, for one, am glad they got caught. The consequences to UGA should not be an issue with the police.

I wouldn’t throw that “not earned or deserved” wording around too much after all they are risking life and limb for the greater glory of a bunch of old rich farts. This is just a case of some guys who need the money taking the money, it’s wrong and it’s illegal but so are a lot of other things that just go away when the right lawyer is hired.

“I was only robbing the register I hope you understand
I saw them leaving” he says and he stops
“One of us had better call up the cops”
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashing
In the cool Athens night.”

Lets not go too far in deflecting the blame from the guilty to the Police in this case. Not only is theft wrong, but in this case it was incredibly stupid. I too have concerns about the head of the University police, but it is hard to fault how they handled this case.

It is sorta sad that Jimmy thinks he’s the only one to mete out UGA arrest justice and he hates it if he doesn’t get to bust their hymens. He is like a mini-DA when making sure he gets the credit for any student arrested and resents if someone gets their hands on them by chance before he does.

Maybe some of us spoof ourselves when we think we are deriding Jimmy with Gestapo zeal concerning his Gestapo zeal.

No, it is not what I took from the post. It is what I was taking from the post along with many of the early comments. Don’t think it was intentional at all. Do think we all tend to get a bit defensive about our guys some time. Jes sayin.

Got a good point, but we are in the Jimmy harrassing business around here because we resent that he is a good campus cop who doesn’t assuage our high anxiety for a bunch of teenagers to wear our colors with just a wink of his eye.

I blame the adults in B-M for this. They could have found a better way to handle it and didn’t. Also you lose control when you involve the police and you never know how a situation will escalate once the boys in blue show up.

This should do wonders for team morale. To use the analogy above, how would you feel towards your parents if they called the police on you for taking a few dollars from your mom’s purse. How would you feel about your friend’s parents for same.

I bet it does wonders for recruiting too. “You really want to go to UGA? If you make a mistake, your own coach will call the cops on you”.

Also, how said is it that these guys thought they wouldn’t get caught? I guess “how the banking system works” needs to be added to new athlete orientation. I am surprised it was first caught by reconciliation by BM. I would think the bank would flag the same checks coming through multiple times.

Tangentially… I’m guessing the Auburn bagman just had the proverbial light bulb flash on. “Here, take this check and cash it as many times as you want.”

Seems to me the Ath. Dept. noticed a few (5-10) checks going through two times, and did the most simple thing they could have done. It was probably right, too. They may have thought that the checks had been stolen from the athletes (and in some cases they were). Or they may have suspected the players in question had been incredibly stupid and at least a bit dishonest. Could they have done an internal investigation? Probably, but who knows if the players who stole would ultimately tell the truth. At some point, guys can’t be spoon-fed anymore. They either get it or not. If they don’t, why do them any favors? I just can’t believe how incredibly stupid the crime was in the first place. Many of us, including me, did some illegal things in college. I’d like to think I calculated the chances of being caught way better than these guys did.

Caqlculate the chances? Like in math? Like I did before cutting a 4′ x 6′ sign from over the front entrance steps to a Ga State Patrol Station. My calculation for a clean gettaway at 4 A.M. was cut short by the screeching of brakes from an off-duty Sheriff’s Deputy who was by chance driving by on the highway 20yds away. Badass luck of the moment for me, but just didn’t calculate it in my perfect crime.

They miscalculated the adventure/reward of a $71 thrill. Dumber than grits.